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University of Valencia cetacean surveys in the Spanish Mediterranean 2000-2003
Contact: Gozalbes Aparicio, Patricia

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Availability: Creative Commons License This dataset is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

Description
Seasonal aerial surveys were conducted in central Spanish Mediterranean waters from 2000 to 2003 to obtain information on the distribution of cetacean species with the aim of delimiting marine protected areas (MPAs) for their conservation. more

The study area comprised the waters of the Valencia and Murcia Regions (central Spanish Mediterranean), from the coastline to between 30 to 80 km offshore, with depths ranging from 10 m to 2800 m. Seasonal line transect surveys were conducted from June 2000 to March 2003. Transects followed a systematic saw-tooth pattern that covered the area representatively (Buckland et al. 2001). The fieldwork platform was a high-wing aircraft (“push-pull” Cessna 337) flying at an altitude of 152 m (500 ft) and at a groundspeed of approximately 166 km/h (90 knots). Two observers, positioned on each side of the aircraft, scanned the sea surface and a recorder took note of data reported: species, number of animals, location (obtained from a GPS), time, and environmental conditions, including Beaufort sea state. Environmental conditions were updated whenever changes occurred and GPS provided a continuous record of position (updated every few seconds). Surveys were conducted only in good sighting conditions of Beaufort sea state less than 3.

Scope
Themes:
Biology > Mammals, Biology > Reptiles
Keywords:
Marine/Coastal, Aerial surveying, aeroplane, MED, Mediterranean, Balaenoptera physalus (Linnaeus, 1758), Caretta caretta (Linnaeus, 1758), Delphinidae Gray, 1821, Delphinus delphis Linnaeus, 1758, Globicephala melas (Traill, 1809), Grampus griseus (G. Cuvier, 1812), Stenella coeruleoalba (Meyen, 1833), Tursiops truncatus (Montagu, 1821), Ziphius cavirostris Cuvier, 1823

Geographical coverage
MED, Mediterranean [Marine Regions]

Temporal coverage
22 February 2000 - 20 March 2003

Taxonomic coverage
Balaenoptera physalus (Linnaeus, 1758) [WoRMS]
Caretta caretta (Linnaeus, 1758) [WoRMS]
Delphinidae Gray, 1821 [WoRMS]
Delphinus delphis Linnaeus, 1758 [WoRMS]
Globicephala melas (Traill, 1809) [WoRMS]
Grampus griseus (G. Cuvier, 1812) [WoRMS]
Stenella coeruleoalba (Meyen, 1833) [WoRMS]
Tursiops truncatus (Montagu, 1821) [WoRMS]
Ziphius cavirostris Cuvier, 1823 [WoRMS]

Contributors
University of Valencia; Cavanilles Institute of Biodiversity and Evolutive Biology; Marine Zoology Unitdata owner
Gozalbes Aparicio, Patricia

Related datasets
Published in:
EurOBIS: European Ocean Biodiversity Information System, more
OBIS-SEAMAP: Spatial Ecological Analysis of Megavertebrate Populations, more

URLs
Dataset information:

Dataset status: Completed
Data type: Data
Data origin: Research: field survey
Metadatarecord created: 2012-11-12
Information last updated: 2022-08-09
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